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HOCKEY; Isles Get Wiemer and Add Some Nastiness

The Islanders made what looked like a minor deal yesterday by sending the towering defenseman Branislav Mezei to the Florida Panthers in exchange for the journeyman center Jason Wiemer. But Wiemer is no ordinary journeyman center. Wiemer is a rambunctious journeyman center.

Wiemer, 26, has been penalized at least 177 minutes in three of the last four seasons and had notable physical confrontations last season with Darius Kasparaitis and Darcy Tucker, two of the nastiest players in the N.H.L. -- and two players whom the Islanders will not like very much in the coming season.

The archrival Rangers signed Kasparaitis, the tenacious former Islander, as a free agent Tuesday. Tucker, the tempestuous Toronto wing, leveled Michael Peca, the Islanders' captain, in the playoffs in April, forcing Peca to have to undergo reconstructive knee surgery.

''We're not going to be fun to play against,'' Islanders General Manager Mike Milbury said yesterday.

The deal was one of a few made on a slow day for N.H.L. transactions. As expected, Detroit re-signed Chris Chelios, a 40-year-old defenseman, to a two-year contract said to be worth $13 million. Late last night, Boston right wing Bill Guerin signed a five-year, $45 million deal with Dallas.

Milbury said the Islanders did not get Wiemer in response to the Rangers' acquisition of Kasparaitis. He said he and Florida General Manager Rick Dudley had been working on a deal for several days.

But Milbury made it clear that he thought the Maple Leafs beat the Islanders in the playoffs because their ''character'' players delivered. Wiemer and Arron Asham, acquired from Montreal for Mariusz Czerkawski, gives the Islanders two more character players than they had.

''I think we've addressed the issue of character with some of the additions that we made,'' Milbury said.

Wiemer earned a seven-game suspension last season for hitting Tucker with the butt end of his stick, then dropping him with an elbow in a 5-1 Toronto victory Nov. 19. Tucker suffered a concussion and was out of the lineup for a week.

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''I was trying to get my stick out and slow him down a bit,'' Wiemer had said after the game.

Referring to the incident with Tucker, Milbury yesterday said: ''It is a total coincidence. But it is not a coincidence that those incidents are why we got him.''

Three weeks earlier, Wiemer sent Kasparaitis, then with Pittsburgh, to the ice with a hard check. After he climbed to his feet, Kasparaitis, a Lithuanian, said it was a long season, and that there would be plenty of time to retaliate.

Wiemer scored 11 goals and had 20 assists in his only season in Florida, but Dudley said yesterday that he projected Wiemer as no better than a third-line forward. Florida needed defensemen, and Milbury reluctantly parted with the 6-foot-5, 221-pound Mezei, who had one goal and six assists in 66 games with the Islanders over two seasons.

''He bangs, he works hard and he can be tough, but he's a pretty darn good player,'' Dudley said of Wiemer.

Milbury also announced yesterday that the Islanders had signed Mattias Weinhandl, a right wing from Sweden who was their third-round draft pick in 1999. The delay came because Weinhandl has only 10 percent vision in his left eye.

Weinhandl was intentionally poked in the eye by Michal Travnicek of the Czech Republic during a face-off at an international tournament in Finland. Travnicek was suspended from international play for one year.

The Islanders feared that Weinhandl's career was in jeopardy. But he returned, and Milbury said Weinhandl had the potential to become one of the Islanders' top six forwards. Milbury suggested that, barring a surprise deal, the Islanders' lineup might be set.

''I went into the free-agent situation thinking the odds were not good of getting a free agent, and they're still not good,'' said Milbury, who said his team is close to budget.

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A version of this article appears in print on July 4, 2002, on Page D00003 of the National edition with the headline: HOCKEY; Isles Get Wiemer and Add Some Nastiness. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe